Showing posts with label historical novels. Show all posts
Showing posts with label historical novels. Show all posts

Sunday, January 29, 2023

The Writer's Goals~~Then and Now




All My historicals @
 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How did we ever get into this writing business/hobby/obsession? 

Motive varies from writer to writer. Some of us wrote to escape, to create alternate worlds in which to live--worlds where we can control the outcomes. Some of us wrote to tell the stories that natter away in our heads incessantly, stories that entertain us so much, or engross us so deeply, we simply HAVE to share them.  There are many so motives for writing a book.  

When I began writing fiction seriously, by which I mean with an eye to publication, back in the late 1970's, there was a path in place to follow. We learned about the stamped, self-addressed envelope, the eye-catching cover letter, the one page synopsis, and the perfect, not-too-long first chapter, which we slaved and sweated over until finally, with great trepidation, we submitted to a carefully selected editor at a publishing house into which we thought our beloved "baby" would "fit." There were long waits for the mail and for some harried assistant editor's attention, followed by, over the years, perhaps a thousand rejections. Aiming at an ever-shrinking mid-list, acceptance into the "published writer" club became ever harder.



When we weren't working on our latest book or day jobs, we went to conferences and learned about genres and the rules which governed those genres, that is, writing to the expectations of your future readers. If your story was a love story, it had to have a happy-ever-after ending. If you wrote mysteries, you'd probably have read dozens of books by the all time greats, authors like Agatha Cristie, Earl Stanley Gardner, John Dickson Carr and Rex Stout. You planned your story and outlined a twisting plot, because "who dunnit" requires the reader to be engaged by the puzzle you've created, and, you, the author, has to remain always a step ahead. 


Back then, you had to be a master of your craft in order to mix genres, and, as a new writer, you did so at your peril. Over time, much has changed. One example would be the old genre, "Romance," which is now split into many many, many categories. The hard-and-fast rules governing genre writing are out the window. 

Moreover, what the ambitious writer of today dreams of is not only the traditionally coveted book deal, but also a movie deal, a TV show, or a series available on one of the many new hungry-for-content streaming platforms, such as Netflix, HBO or Showtime. 


These days you can cross all the genres you can imagine in film. Look at the success of Lucifer, which started on HBO, and, then found a new home at Netflix. Into what genre would you put this show? Lucifer had a Comic book genesis (via Milton's  poetic sermon, Paradise Lost, via Neil Gaiman's Good Omens. Now the title character is a witty, urbane modern celestial escapee from Hell, but added to that, we've got a mash-up of romance, comedy, police procedural, adventure, soap opera and kung-fu fighting + gunfire, all crammed into a fantasy-fast-lane of sex, drugs and rock'in'roll inside the entertainment world of modern Los Angeles. (How's that for a run-on sentence!?)


666



One of my cross-genre books:
Black Magic
Vampires, Shapeshifters, Historical, Adventure, Family Saga, set on an 18th Century 
Alpine estate that's nowhere near as placid as it appears.


Writing, now that we've crossed into another century, remains a labor of love/obsession that may or may not ever pay off. It's probably even harder than it once was to get published in the 21st Century, and ever so much harder to attract an audience with so much material clamoring for attention. 

Still, if the madness is upon you...well, all I can advise is "Go for it."

~~Juliet Waldron





Saturday, January 29, 2022

Joys in January

 

 Kobo

Smashwords

Amazon

Barnes & Noble


Cold, tired, eyes full of blue, black and glitter--that for me was January after our family moved to upstate New York in the early 1950's. I arose in the dark,  ate oatmeal and the obligatory spoonful of cod liver oil chased with a shot glass of orange juice, and then got ready for the school bus--boots, leggings, coat, scarf and gloves plus whatever homework I had before trudging out into the sunrise over the snow banks. In those days, the snow had been piling up since October, and by now it was also well glazed with ice. I remember shivering, standing on our porch sheltering from the ever-present North wind and peering, eyes watering, into the gold and red of sun just cresting the stand of trees on the next ridge, anxious to see the bus in time to get down the long driveway in time to meet it. (Needless to say,  there was BIG TROUBLE if I didn't.) 

 

Amazon

Kobo


I remember playing outside in that cold with friends on most Saturdays. There were sliding hills, of course, but there were also enormous drifts in every yard to exploit. We'd tunnel into them and then sit inside, pretending we were in caves or that we were Indians or Inuit, sheltering during a winter hunting expedition. I remember me and my friends bringing candles, throw rugs, dolls and matches along to better enjoy our pretend.

After we'd furnished our "igloo," we'd light the candles and apply the flame to the wall and ceiling of until it dripped. The melt would speedily refreeze, but after a great deal of this careful work, we achieved a shiny frozen shell that might endure, during a truly bad winter, well into March.  Mittens beaded with frozen pellets of snow, toes aching from the cold penetrating our boots, we'd enter child's fantasy land. I have no idea how we endured outside as long as we did, before the inevitable surrender and numb escape indoors for warmth and hot chocolate. Those physical experiences, even so long ago, helped me to imagine some pivotal scenes in "Fly Away Snow Goose."

There are many birthdays for me to celebrate in January--of the living and the dead. Two cousins were born in this month, but also two of grand-girls, the youngest of whom just turned twenty-one! They are all Capricorns, like my mother, whose birthday was also in this month.  (How many families, I wonder, have this aggregation of birthdays in a single month?) 

In the days when my Muse was visiting, I also celebrated the birthdays of two Dead White Men during the month. Alexander Hamilton's birthday is January 11, either in 1755 or 1757, as historians argue over the date. Paper records kept in tropical Nevis have not always survived.

Perhaps Hamilton himself muddied the waters on the date, wanting, rather like Mozart, to keep his hard-won status as a  prodigy for as long as possible.  Born in the West Indies into a family in constant financial distress, with the appellation "bastard" attached to his name, it was of monumental importance to Alexander that every possible strategy to assist his climb the social ladder be employed.   

   Young Hamilton as ADC to General Washington by Charles Wilson Peale                   

I never had birthday parties for Hammie, although I'd loved him the longest of all my dead white man crushes. Here I am in Nevis back when it barely had an airport, and the electricity only ran between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. My mother took us there--intrepid travelers that we were--back in the mid-1950's. Here's a happy January picture of me on the lava sand beach near where the Hamilton home was once supposed to have been. 


And of course in the days of Mozart madness, I'd prepare for weeks before. I remember the first birthday party we had, it snowed heavily and I spent the morning digging parking places for my friends. Some cancelled, because the weather was truly nasty and the roads treacherous, but here are the intrepid few who came to that first party, all of them writers.


Mozart's birthday party was a thing for many years here. At one gathering, an entire poetry/writing group of perhaps twenty souls arrived, and our small house was warmed by all of those folks, by Mozart's music and much spirited conversation. I always made syllabub, which has to be started a few days before you intend to serve it. The centerpiece was always a glorious German bakery treat such as the one seen below, and we all laughed like children, riding on the sugar/wine high. Winter was outside the door and life was tough, but right now we could forget it all and just be happy.



The baker I talked to about the cake turned out to be not only a recent immigrant from Austria, but a huge Mozart fan as well! He beamed and told me how pleased he was to do this. You can see that he fulfilled my expectations and then some.






  

Wednesday, December 29, 2021

12 Days of Medieval Christmas

 





In medieval times, Christmas was ardently Christian, but there were naturally Pagan traditions aplenty to be found hidden within the celebration. Some of these ancient traditions, like the German "Bad Santa" Krampus, still have plenty of fans.



The Twelve Days of Christmas themselves are both a memory of the Roman Saturnalia (Rome, which was The Empire of its time) as well as the even more ancient human observance of our planetary trip round the sun. The Sun's rebirth --that shortest day, when the sun is weakest, Winter Solstice--became, in Christian calendar, Jesus's natal day. We use the 25th now, but that had to do, I believe, with 18th Century adjustments to the western calendar. 

Those twelve days are no longer observed with the same pomp as in medieval times. Some years, after a bad harvest,  the poorest villagers might have been hard pressed to have enough to eat for the rest of the winter.  During famine years, it must have been a feat to manage any kind of "feast," but the custom of pre-Christmas fasting always helped to shore up supplies. 

Imagine twelve whole days of celebration! During that time, a peasant farmer or craftsman was not supposed to so much as lift a tool, although they were allowed to feed their livestock. This means that a great deal of planning necessarily went into preparation for this prolonged "vacation" at each year's end. Extra wood had to be cut and stacked close by houses. Stores of hay and grain laid into barns so that it would be a minimal task to feed the animals. Just like today, however, nothing changed for the "essential workers" of the time. Cooks, housewives and scullery boys, or the servants at the Castle. All these people remained on the job.

The 24 days preceding Christmas is called Advent and was the occasion of this fast. In the Late Middle Ages, this meant no meat, cheese, or eggs could be eaten--although this particular tradition is no longer part of our (consumption-driven) culture. In the past, there was a belief that a person must prepare themselves both physically and mentally for the upcoming ritual experience of the Divine Mystery that was to come. 

If you were a peasant, however, there was a practical reason to consume less before Christmas--simply to conserve enough of what food stores you had in order to provide for those festive 12 days.  The poorest villagers lived hand-to-mouth upon a diet of beans, barley or oat porridge, and near-beer, their menu filled out with whatever green stuff they could scrounge from the edges of their Lord's forest.   

Besides food for man and beast, other supplies had to be stocked as well. Wood for fuel was a necessity, of course, but specific types of wood was split and stacked together--hazel, beech, oak and ash all being used at different times during the cooking process to adequately heat those earthen or brick ovens for the baking of meat, bread and pies.  Hazel twigs burned hot and were fire-starters; beech and ash supplied a steady heat, while oak lasted longest of all and burned the slowest.

Rush lights were made by soaking rushes in left-over cooking fat and pan scrapings. These would burn for about an hour, hot, and bright, but smoking heavily and carrying the odor of whatever fat had been used, and this was the way a medieval peasant "kept the lights on" during the long, dark winter nights. This was making of rush lights would have been going on in late summer, July and August, while the reeds (species: Juncus Effusus) were still growing, and the pith which would absorb the fat, was well-developed.     

                                                             he farming year of 4 Seasons
      

Pork was the traditional food of Christmas in the British Isles, a custom with pagan roots.   The wild Boar was hunted to extinction in Britain by the 13th Century, so the Christmas pork then on would have to have been domestic. Those medieval pigs would have looked rough, though, feral and unfamiliar.

Pagan associations of the pig feast at midwinter are many. One of the most interesting discoveries at the famous Neolithic sites of Woodhenge and Stonehenge  were mountainous heaps of pig bones. Such feasts are a well-attested-to-tradition in many Germanic, Slavic and Norse cultures.

                                              Freya and her brother Freyr, Gods of the Vanir.*
                                                   Here, Frey is shape-shifted into a Boar.


Getting the boar's head -- the centerpiece of any prosperous farmer's feast -- ready for the table was laborious task which began with slaughtering, scraping, and butchering, followed by a bustle of preservation. Sausage was made from the blood and the hide readied to be tanned. Every bit of that pig would be consumed in one way or another. 

                                                                       Semi-feral hog

Pig's are "thrifty" animals, and in medieval times fed well in the woods upon acorns as well as the standard remains of human cooking. Then as now, the pig gave his all! Removing the skull from the meat and flesh was no easy feat. After this careful dressing out, the remaining flesh and ears had to be carefully preserved for eventual presentation at Christmas Eve Supper. 

The housewife would store the fleshy remains in a simple pickling liquid (vinegar, mustard seeds) until it was time to prepare it for the feast. Then she would remove it from the pickle and stitch it back together--a sort of taxidermy job-- and fill the pouch with a stuffing mixture of raisin paste and nuts, after which it would be roasted. Serving the boar's head on a platter surrounded by greenery traditionally began that first festive meal of the Christmas holiday.  

The medieval farmhouse had been decorated with Holly and Ivy. Sometimes, a Christmas Crown, an open wattle basket decorated with sprigs of Holly and Ivy was woven by the men and hoisted up high above the rising smoke of the central hearth where it would remain for the next twelve days. Holly and Ivy--representing of male and female--was a custom left over from more ancient religious observances. In medieval times, though, it was often said that if there was more ivy than holly among the decorations, the house would be ruled by the wife during the next year.  

Pastry for pies, both sweet and savory, had to be sturdy enough to stand up by themselves, as this was before people had a great many kinds of differentiated cookware, such as today's pie pans. Frumenty was a sort of yogurty smoothy made of cracked wheat and milk and flavored with dried fruit, nutmeg and cloves. These exotic spices arrived in a medieval kitchen after a 7000+ mile trader-to-trader journey. Other dishes served might be a sweetened milk gelatin or a gelatin cone of meat scraps, called a "Shred Pie." 



There would be church services every day. Masses were celebrated in honor of the birth of Jesus and in honor of the many saint's days which cluster throughout the twelve days. St. Stephen's Day is next (known in the UK and her still extant colonies) as "Boxing Day." December 27th celebrates the feast of St. John, Apostle and Evangelist. On the 28th comes the Feast of the Holy Innocents, which commemorates the slaughter of new born boys ordered by King Herod. The memorial of St. Thomas Becket, Bishop and martyr, a "turbulent priest" murdered by order of King Henry II of England, comes on the 29th. Next comes the Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, which often falls upon December 30th. The last day of the year is the feast of Saint Sylvester. The following day, January 1 of the new year, is celebrated as "the Solemnity of the Nativity of Mary, Mother of God" in Christ's mother Mary is honored.  In some denominations, this last is said to be in honor of the Circumcision of Jesus, falling as it would, eight days following any proper Hebrew boy-child's birth.  


Twelfth Night, the final celebration, had many traditions. One of them was Wassailing, which could be a parade around the village or just around the kitchen, accompanied by singing, piping, banter, and still more food and drink. Villagers would visit one another's homes and sing carols. Sometimes drink was offered by the homeowner as a thank-you. In some places, the tradition of Mummers, men and women in costume, was a time-honored part of the Twelfth Night celebration.

                                                  Mummers singing and dancing in costume

In apple orchards, offerings of toast soaked in punch might be placed in the branches of the trees, or glasses of cider were poured into the orchard earth, as a thank-you offering to the fruit trees for their cider. At the Twelfth Night feast, a Lord of Misrule was chosen by passing a large freshly baked loaf of bread around the table. As everyone tore off a piece and put it into their mouths, one of them would discover the single pea that had been baked inside. This person became Lord of Misrule, crowned with a garland. His office was to devise party games and tell jokes and tales. Often these feasts would dissolve into riot, with people pelting one another with bread and leftovers and rowdy, drunken dancing. This was the night when the Magi found Jesus and worshiped him as "King of Kings."
 
                                                                   The Four Seasons

Then, like a bucket of cold water emptied upon everyone's head, came "Plough Monday," the day when farmers returned to their fields and women cleaned house and began to card wool, and spin and weave again. Another Christmas had gone and the toil of the year had once more begun. 




~~Juliet Waldron

All my historical novels @ Amazon

My historical novels @ Books We Love

Sources:

Life in a Medieval Village by Francis Gies and Joseph Gies        http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004HIX4GS

*Vanir-the original Norse gods, overshadowed in surviving stories by the later arrivals--the Aesir gods with whom people now are more familiar--Thor, Odin, Frigg, Balder etc.

How to Celebrate Christmas Medieval Style:

https://youtu.be/BY2TN8E5yAs




Monday, November 29, 2021

Edge of the Frontier

                                             https://bookswelove.net/waldron-juliet/
 
                               "Red and White--at war in her world and in her blood."

Colonial America's early history tells the story of the--at first gradual, and, finally, as Europe burst figurative banks, the enormous wave of "people from over the sea" washed into what is today the U.S. 

I first became of aware of this history of colonization when I was seven, after a move from Ohio to New York State.  Mother relished history and so when she and my father house-hunted, she wanted to find as old a house as she could. I don't think Dad got much say in this, because he was all for "modern" anytime he could get it. Having been a teen through the Depression era had convinced him that electric lights, a furnace and flushing toilets were all desirable things

The house we moved into provided all that, although it had been originally built, near as anybody knew, a decade or so before 1800, probably during the time when newly independent Americans were spilling onto lands that had once belonged to the local and now dispossessed Iroquoian tribes.  Our house was small, a style that today is commonly called "Cape Cod" but it also had Dutch doors equipped with heavy iron hinges and which were locked with a bar. As this was near the Mohawk Valley, that the builders were Dutch and had been there before the War of Independence did not seem improbable. There was even a story about Indian attacks during the early days of the house, one which the restless spirits which we encountered almost as we took up residence did nothing to disprove. 


I recently took a New England trip to see an old friend and we decided to go a few miles north to Deerfield, to visit the National Historical site there. When I first saw those carefully preserved Georgian era Colonial houses along the main street, it seemed to me that this would be just another Tory New England town, one which was once filled with dour Calvinist merchants and landlords. I soon learned that during the Revolution, this town had remained loyal to the Crown. 

There were many reasons for this, one of which was that the original terms of the Massachusetts Bay colony. That stipulated that these Dissenters, freshly kicked out of England, could run the territory as a kind of fundamentalist kingdom, as long as they remained loyal and sent plenty of young men into the King's army whenever called upon to do so.  In this Puritan theocracy, citizens could be whipped (15-20 lashes!) and fined for not only more obvious Puritan sins like adultery and/or drunkenness, but for not attending the obligatory, (and endless) Sunday services. In many ways, however, in this period, local government was had many admirable qualities. The towns were administered by Selectmen, and legislation was by consensus instead of majority rule.  


          The minister's house, one of the largest in Deerfield, built for him by his flock.

When white immigrants first explored that area, they found an Algonquian tribe living in a stockaded town, while farming the rich bottom land around the Connecticut River. These were the Pocumtucks, and they lived (mostly) in harmony with their Algonquian relatives. At this time, European diseases, smallpox and measles, were already killing many Indians, while fighting over control over the fur trade increased every year, because those fabulous goodies like metal farming tools and cook pots, guns and wool blankets, etc. brought by European traders had opened a new world to a stone-age people. By the 1630's, these foreign trade goods were becoming indispensable.  

The Iroquois, fierce warriors, were "the enemy" for both the Algonquian tribes and the new immigrants alike. Their confederacy (Seneca, Onondaga, Cayuga, Oneida,) occupied New York State, but their war- path reach extended right across the Connecticut Valley and into Abenaki lands as distant as Maine. The Iroquois were always in the middle of any land or trade agreement, whether you were Algonquian, Dutch, French or English. They made war frequently in order to take captives, preferring to take children who could be assimilated easily. European or Indian, at this time you had to take the mighty Iroquois into consideration.

For a time, the Pocumtucks were able to deal with the whites, who were, initially, seen as just another "tribe" looking for land. Eventually, however, the Pocumtuck angered the Mohawks by killing one of their chiefs. After one swift punitive strike from the Hudson Valley, the Pocumtuck and their town by the river were no more.  

It did not take long for the land to be resettled, this time by an English plantation. Good farmland could not long be ignored by the settlers, but the site seemed cursed. Settlers were just eking out a living when King's Philip's War erupted. This conflict would be the last stand of the eastern Algonquian tribes against an overwhelming white incursion. 

An attempted retreat by the people of Pocumtuck, carrying away their newly harvested corn, ended in a massacre at a place now called "Bloody Brook," and made infamous by Puritan writers. Poor preparation by the militia contributed greatly to the disaster. The town of Pocumtuck hadn't even bothered to build a stockade, so the town was easily destroyed. During this war, one hundred and forty-five men were killed in the northern part of the valley, most of them settlers. Four other towns in the Connecticut Valley were also completely destroyed. The remaining five towns had all been attacked and raided for their corn and cattle. It must have been a grim winter, with families broken and famine on the horizon. 

It would take more than a decade, but the old Pocumtuck land would be resettled, this time called "Deerfield." The new settlers built a stockade. Farmers came to land, younger sons from towns like Northampton, Hadley, Hatfield and Springfield, all places south along the Connecticut River. 

Time would pass while the town grew again, but peace broke down easily. There were always inter-tribal wars as well as wars that originated in Europe to cause Indian raids, rustling and murder among the outlying farms. In the early 1700's, what is known as Queen Anne's War* broke out. The French joined forces with the Caughnawaga and Mohawk, raiding into northern New York and down into New England, even into Halifax near Boston. The Connecticut Valley became a battlefield again.

Deerfield begged for help with troops and arms, and a little arrived in late 1703. Deep in winter of 1704, a group of two to three hundred men on snowshoes came south from Montreal. Among them were French soldiers, coureurs de bois, and Indians, many of these refugees from King's Philips' War, the one that had broken the New England tribes. 

Drifts of snow helped the invaders scale the stockade while the watch overslept. Soon "they were fireing houses, killing all they could that made any resistance, also killing livestock." The Reverend John Williams who lived through a subsequent captivity to tell the tale said: "by their violent endeavors ... broke open doors and windows, with axes and hatchets..." His pistol misfired and he was quickly captured and bound. He watched the murder his youngest two children, a toddler and a six week old baby, as well as the children's black nurse. He and his wife (who would be killed at the start of their march) and five children were carried into captivity.    On the terrible winter march north, Williams would watch nine more people die--the young and the old. 

The sack of Deerfield had ended when men from Hadley and Hatfield arrived on the scene. Early on in the fight, a young man, John Sheldon, after binding his feet with strips of his nightshirt, had managed to struggle almost naked through deep snow for many miles in order to give the alarm. 

Of the 291 people who had gone to sleep in Deerfield that fatal night, only 133 remained alive the following day. Beyond the 109 people captured, 44 residents of Deerfield had been killed--ten men, 9 women and 25 small children. Seventeen of forty-one houses were destroyed. Reverend Williams would survive his captivity and eventually redeem four of his five children.* 

Driving through bustling Connecticut and into Massachusetts today, I can barely imagine this totally urbanized/suburbanized landscape as a frontier, one every bit as wild and dangerous as our more well-known "wild west." The early period of colonization was complex, filled with wars between Indians as well as wars between various groups of colonists as well as the more often remembered wars between Indians and Europeans. 

At the end of the school day, my friend and I paused in our visit to watch Deerfield's streets fill with BMW's and Mercedes as parents arrived to retrieve their children from the exclusive private prep school that shares grounds with the historical site. It was hard, watching that scene, to remember what a hard-scrabble, cold, tough, dangerous place the early New England world truly was.  




~~Juliet Waldron

Historical Novels may also be found here:

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/search?Query=Juliet+Waldron

https://www.smashwords.com/books/search?query=Juliet+Waldron

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004HIX4GS

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/Juliet+Waldron?_requestid=1854149


* The North American part of the European War of the Spanish Succession. .

* You can read about it in The Unredeemed Captive. Eunice, the youngest survivor of the Williams children, would become Catholic and marry an Indian. Reverend John Williams himself wrote the first text of the tale, the one upon which modern books on the subject are based.   



Friday, October 29, 2021

The HEXENMEISTER'S REVENGE

 Click here for this and more of my books

Here follows a long story about what happens when pride overtakes a powerful man, a retelling of a Hudson River valley story. (Thanks to Washington Irving for inspiration and to Professor Richard I. Melvoin of Harvard/Ratcliff for history.)

An older man under duress has to use what he has around him. In 1762, Professor Mattias Hoffmann, now dwelling in Kingston, a small town overlooking the Hudson, decided that he was going to defend himself from the religious bigots who seemed to pursue him everywhere he went. Now, it appeared, this relentless ignorance had pursued him, even into the New World. 

Mattias had once been a bright-eyed seminarian, sent to attend the forward-thinking university of Halle where he hoped to avoid the fate of so many--Divinity School! Early on, his mind was full of too full of questions to be satisfied by simply swallowing one dogma or the other and regurgitating upon demand. He would have been ashamed of himself, he thought, to have been so intellectually incurious.

Mattias had been a linguist from the start, for he grew up along the Dutch/German border. He grew up speaking Dutch, German, French in the course of a day. His grandparents, survivors of religious wars, were Lutherans in service to a Protestant Elector, but they had learned to keep their heads down when necessary. His family was not poor, but certainly not wealthy, either, so his intelligence and strong character were important assets to the young man. 

Mattias, intelligent and deserving, had entered University of Halle with an eye to medicine, however, too many new ideas captured his fancy to keep him strictly on course. His knack for languages had already sent him deep into Greek and Hebrew, academic necessities. He also found many English friends at University, and so, added yet another language.

Hebrew studies, especially the more esoteric ones, fascinated him. Soon he was drawn into some very unconventional intellectual paths, dabbling in things not quite Protestant--in fact, these things were not even Christian.  Being a fellow of an overwhelmingly curious nature, he did not close his mind and then close the book, but instead rationalized that as these teachings were from Pagan times, the subject might still be pursued as an historical interest. Mattias had a need to know secrets so deep that his desire overrode his training. He believed that in any case, he would be excused, even by the stern unbending Lutheran God in whom he believed.

He proceeded with his studies, even connecting--through a fellow student, a bright, intense Jewish youth called Solomon, Mattias at length acquired an invitation to visit a wise Hebrew scholar.   By report, Rabbi Fishbane, a deep student of the ancient sacred texts, ordinarily refused such pleas, especially ones from such a lowly member of the academia. The last Halle man known to have consulted him had, in fact, been one of Mattias's professors. 

Surprised, pleased and very, very anxious, hat in hand, Mattias entered a long narrow brick walkway down an old street, overhung by houses. The ancient gray stone structures perfectly matched the day's low sky. For a brief time, they walked beneath an arcade sheltered by from the central plaza by mature grape vines, now withered in winter. Ascending a narrow winding staircase of stone, the each step now cupped with age, they passed through a final door and into a second floor room piled to ceiling with books and papers.

The venerable Rabbi sat in high-backed chair, tiny as a cricket, fine flesh like ivory. His eyes, above the long scraggly white beard, appeared astonishingly clear and bright, although he did have spectacles perched on the end of a hawkish nose. Mattias bowed to the scholar, behaving as Solomon had previously instructed. At the same moment, his friend, at a slight gesture from the Rabbi, left to wait outside. 

Mattias, suddenly afraid, felt his heart stop his throat as he began to speak, but the Rabbi beckoned to him. 

"You must stand beside me, young man. I have foreseen you would come to visit and that is why you are here. Today, I wish show you some images within a book.  First, however, you must find it for me." He gestured toward a wide, sagging bookcase. "This knowledge has been copied and was printed in the last century, without too many mistakes, I believe. This is the book however, that will initiate your journey toward the wisdom that you seek."  

It took time, even lamp in hand, to find the book. Mattias wondered if the Rabbi was testing his Hebrew, although he had saluted the reverend Rabbi in that language. Carefully, he studied the ancient cracked spines and faded lettering. At the same time, he wished he could carve all the names of each and every one into his memory, all while searching with all the gravity of carriage he could muster.

At last he found and placed the book on the table. The Rabbi extended his long fingers and made a practiced, graceful gesture before he bowed over the cover before slowly openimg it. A warm yellow light began to glow around him as he carefully leafed through the pages. 

Mattais heard, "To even begin to understand, young man, you must first undertake deep studies in our religion. You must learn Halakha, religious law, as well as Tanakh and Midrash before you can begin to approach Raziel's Book..."

For an instant, Mattias's heart sank at the notion of so much lying before him. That feeling, as he studied the golden glow in the old scholar's hands, swiftly dissolved into the promise of ultimate discovery, the central mystery which he was so driven to seek. 

I must find and turn these keys, and open the doors, and discover revelation! Perhaps, even, I shall understand eternity! 

Or maybe, an unworthy whisper came from his soul's cellar--obtain more worldly things, for gold, too, has a shine... 

****

That day had happened a very long time ago. The journey he'd begun there had led to successes in the material world, and gains in the depth of his understanding, but after some years, these achievements felt empty. He was a popular professor with classes full of enthusiastic students, with influential friends in Academia. It was a success of a kind, but it would not last. The world below magical moved in its own way and was becoming uncontrollable. Within the next decade he found himself poor again, cast out of the university and now suspected by the authorities of the kind of radicalism that leads to execution. He was forced to run from beautiful Halle, carrying his books. He committed as much as he could to memory from those precious volumes he realized he'd be forced to sell along the way. 


In desperation, Mattias crossed the ocean and entered the raw New World at New York, carrying little but his last and most precious books. The collapse of his world, he thought, had been caused by his materialism. This had caused him to lose focus and forget that initial fire had been set by that great intrinsic longing to know with which he'd been born. 

"Behave like a clockwork instead of man, and this is what will ensure." A clear voice, the Rabbi's, he imagined, sounded in his head and without further question, he believed it. Now, hiding here among the overwhelming sensations and new reality of this western world, a place where Nature still ruled, he would find a way to live  monastically, purely. He would study and meditate and take up again his original search for higher ground. 

Still, naturally, this could not just happen without struggle. After all, Mattias was still young when he arrived on these shores, erudite, yes, but nothing he had learned before could have prepared him to survive in this inconceivable, barbaric place. He had everything to learn about survival on a frontier, a skill not taught in even the finest German universities.

It took all his youthful strength and energy, but he found ways to keep body and soul together without having to step too far outside the academic world he knew so well. Many younger sons of the gentry in this place, children of great landowners, those less aggressive or less capable, were sent to the Church and needed proficiency in ancient languages, such as Hebrew, in order to enter the colleges of William & Mary, or Harvard or Yale. 

And so, though the task was frequently almost more than he could bear, he found connections and ways into this new career. It was enough to keep him housed and fed, with time off for his private studies. As he was not interested in much beyond the path he was following again, it was easy to stay clear of particular entanglements, especially with the fair sex, a powerful attraction to most men of his age and physique. 

For, you see, Mattis stood quite tall, near six feet. Nature had equipped him with not only a pleasant open face, but a good spine and broad shoulders. He quickly learned how to cut wood quite handily, a necessary frontier skill. Being the kind of man he was, however, he also soon learned that splitting kindling and stacking it was a powerful form of meditation.    

With a bequest from a grateful father--and the aid of a long forsworn twist on the one of the material keys he'd used with such success in Halle--Mattias eventually was able to give this servitude up and retreat up the Hudson to the little town of Kingston. Here, he lived twenty years upon some business interests, surrounded by books both new and recently acquired in pleasant enough circumstances. 

Unfortunately -- or fortunately -- his natural curiosity and desire to explore where others did not dare, got him into trouble again.

In his time in Kingston, his work-a-day self a small trader, he met all kinds of travelers from up and down the river. He wasn't much of a tavern man, though he went early sometimes, before the supper rush, just to have a frugal meal, a pipe and the sight of other people. 

A skinny yellow dog befriended him and moved into his home, and he was quickly glad of the smiling, obliging company. He employed a woman servant to cook and clean, and kept a man servant, too, living in the house, to help him clerk for his small ventures, such as bringing books from Europe,  that he did.  The Dutch Reformed minister, a scholarly, educated man like himself, became a friend, and they enjoyed one another's intellectual company. Still, Mattias kept all his secrets. 

Twenty years is a good stretch of time, even for a man as retiring as Herr Professor Hoffmann, to dig roots into a place. Walking down along the river, he began to met Indians. the idea of learning another language seduced him, but being a sometimes a diplomat, he first asked them to teach him. 

They grumbled and resisted, naturally, saying that it would be better for them if he would teach them to speak English. Mattias, ever open-minded, agreed. He brought them presents to show his appreciation. Eventually, after learning to speak and more of their customs and ways, he would invite them to come to his house in the twilight, these old men, small remnants of now broken river tribes. And because of his insatiable curiosity about higher things, he was, after some time,  invited to visit a sachem who lived deep in the forest, some of which was still primeval. 

His own kind warned that it was not safe for him to go alone out there, but he did, riding out on his mule, a beast with many quirks and demands, a beast, who, as he often said, "taught him things,"  not the least of which was a mule's eye view of follies of humans. 

Before his first visit to the Sachem, he'd learned that the venerable man, Dreaming Snake, was a controversial figure among some of the Native people who remained. Some Indians even called Dreaming Snake a "witch," and warned Hoffmann about the dangers of visiting him. Of course, this only served to fascinate him further. 

The word "witch" had never called to him with such force, or filled him with such longing. Now, under trees that must have grown since the last burning of the Jerusalem's temple, he knew that here was another path he was destined to study.

Here, in this land, at once so old and yet so new, was--perhaps--an ancient connection to the Secret Powers of which he'd so longed! Perhaps, as he studied further, even to the keys he'd never been able to properly turn, these mysteries he'd glimpsed during his long ago study of The Book of the Angel Raziel. 

What is this thing called Magic, after all? He pondered it endlessly, as his still avid desire to know and delve into the sacred secrets burned hot. He turned over the tales that he heard from the old Shaman, a man with one eye, old, yet somehow of ageless, much like Rabbi Fishbane, who had so kindly set his feet on this path. Perhaps, Matthias thought wryly, the Shaman, being a heathen, was  more like the greatest German god, Odin. 

Magic, after all, is, in simplest terms, causing things you wish for to manifest. As time passed, and the two men grew in friendship and trust, he learned that Dreaming Snake could make it rain or not rain, could heal minds and bodies with decoctions of herbs just as he could.

 He continued his visits to Dreaming Snake--always bearing fine gifts of food and tobacco--and quickly learned that this was no "savage" but a subtle and learned man. His tribe were Munsee, but they had been nearly destroyed in the wars with Iroquois and French that had gone on ever since they and the English had arrived and begun to quarrel over trade.

 Mattias grew to love this old man and spend more and more time with him. In order to make things easier for both of them, he invited Dreaming Snake to stay with him, to bring along his followers and family. He had made a comfortable place to dwell behind the garden, a marvelous place he'd cultivated with magical herbs, Thyme and Fennel, Boneset, Fenugreek and Cinquefoil, as well as Sage, Nettle and Yarrow.

 Dreaming Snake had his own plants, and the two of them planted and learned together when the spring came. At night, sometimes, they drew strange figures in chalk on the floor, which always vanished before morning came or his cook and housekeeper, conscientious Widow Visser, stirred out of bed.

Dreaming Snake soon supplied a large piece of puzzle of why some of those long-held keys opened some doors for Matthias and not others. Once this "heathen" had seen the workings and the sigils, eventually their correspondences became meaningful to him. After a long time of pondering upon their meanings as explained to him, the solution came to him. It was quite astonishing to Mattias, for such knowledge to appear from the other side of what had once been a once-bridgeless gap of culture and education. The answer came to him in a dream, as such answers must. 

"My friend," Dreaming Snake said when he awoke in the morning after his revelatory dream, "these doors will not open for those keys of yours because you have not spoken with proper reverence to the spirits of the Earth. Here, I believe I have seen the answer to your problem..."

And, to Matthias's rapturous delight, once Dreaming Snake had taught him how to properly address the spirits of this New World Earth, the keys worked! Now all the Magic was his to exercise! 

He and Dreaming Snake made great journeys together, each seeing things neither had ever seen or known of before. 

The true name of the Hudson, Matthias learned, was "Mah-he-kun-ne-tuk" or "River Which Flows Both Ways." These men, though red and white, were long time seekers, and now they had found a way to merge their arcane knowledge, merge, as the fresh water mingled with the sea and out of this meeting produced many riches--visceral, material, and spiritual--all coming in at flood tide. 

The two men were bonded now like brothers in a way Matthias could never have imagined. They basked together like two snakes in the summer sun, delighting in those things they had seen, in the mysteries that had opened for them, the monumental revelations. At this time, however, Matthias, in an almost continual state of psychic rapture, became less careful of appearances. 

Now, his reliable servant, the pious Widow Visser was a strong, straight-backed, prudent woman who managed the girls of all work who cycled through Professor Hoffman's household every few years. She worked the maids hard, but she also supplied a wealth of household training. When her charges left, they often went to better lives in the homes of more affluent neighbors. The luckiest ones found marriages as second wives, the kind of match that speaks more of practicality than of passionate love. Older men, better supplied to take care of them, could pave their ways to fortune. After all, an older man could die, swiftly turning an industrious obedient wife into a well-supplied widow.

Now, the Widow had been with Herr Professor for nearly the entire twenty years he'd passed in Kingston. She was trusted and respected by her employer and by the town. She was a devout Dutch Lutheran, who attended Church services and read nothing her Bible. 

Unfortunately, the arrival of Dreaming Snake, and the relatives who soon gathered to help look after their revered elder, was unsettling and frightening to her. Widow Visser remembered the bloody raids of her childhood only too well. Her first husband had actually been dispatched by a party of Mohawks, men from one of the Iroquoian bands that had gone over to the French. They had had caught her husband while he was hunting on the edge of the forest one fine autumn afternoon, had relieved him of his gun, his game, and then of his life.

As a result of this and many other such tragic accidents, the Widow, like many colonists, made no distinction between hostile Iroquois, or British-allied Indians, like the Munsee, or Mohicans, some of whom were now Christian. To her and to many others, all Indians were the same, a bunch of dangerous savages. 

She fussed and complained, although the Professor was was understanding. He explained to her that it was all part of a task for which he was "destined." He used all his skill of calming and persuasion. She held her peace for a time, but then the fatal night came when she cracked open the parlor door, and, entranced, watched as the men drew strange symbols on the floor, then set little fires in bowls of herbs and sage. At last both men sat down together cross-legged, on the floor in the middle of a chalk circle. As she fled the scene, she heard a strange whispering in some unknown tongue pursuing her.

 Now the Widow had seen the Professor do water divination and always succeed. She had seen him rescue sick and injured men with his medicines and ability staunch infection and set bones. Over the years, in times of the local farmers' need, she had known him to promise rain and to actually deliver it. 

She, after such long acquaintance, understood that her good employer had some unusual "craft" about him. Nevertheless, up until recently, since he'd become so taken with the Indians, he'd attended Church, near as often as she did. For these years, too, she saw that he had been a boon companion to their scholarly minister. But when old Dominie Van Veltzen died over that winter, one which was particularly bitter, her good will toward a previously decent employer began to evaporate. 

The search for a new Dominie began at once, for, at this frigid time, sleighing down the frozen river made far quicker travel, than in spring, at the time of ice break-up, followed by the long muddy season, where roads were impassable. 

Now hot on the trail of new learning, new revelations, Professor Hoffman had, over the last year, withdrawn from church affairs. The upshot of this neglect, was that the committee charged with finding a replacement, chose man not of the same temperament nor as half as wise as his predecessor. This, and the Widow's increasing fear and anxiety about the Indians who now often desecrated her tidy kitchen with their peculiar presence, would become an open sore within which a violent intolerance began to breed. 

It did not take a year after the installation of Dominie De Vries, an unimaginative and rigid mediocrity, for Mathtias to find himself once again the center of a storm of controversy. He could protest that he was a good Christian till the cows came home, but quickly, after all the tales of strange doings at the house, spread by the Widow and the latest kitchen maid who had become her spy, Hoffmann found that he was no longer welcome in Kingston. He must leave his comfortable home and well-established garden and disappear again. 

This ruin of his reputation and security--once again--took a huge toll upon him, body and mind. At first he had not seen what was unraveling, as he had genuinely been occupied in grieving for the old Dominie, his long time supporter and a man beyond reproach, one whose opinion mattered greatly to the townspeople. 

Before he quite knew what was happening around him, he found himself once again a refugee upon the frontier to the north, beyond even the tiniest villages. The few white men were plain men, pioneer farmers interested in nothing but making ends meet and desperately fearful of savages--either Red or White--most of the time.

This land was still crossed seasonally by shattered bands of Munsee, Abenaki and Mohican, and that was the only refuge, Mattias, a branded heretic could find. Here, among Indian relatives of Dreaming Snake. He had a few trade items left from the wreck of his fortune he'd brought to the wilderness, which he hoped would allow him to erect some kind of shelter thrown up over himself and his books before winter swept in again. 

At first, the struggling farmers were willing to barter time and labor for the goods he'd brought, but eventually, as they watched the little band of Native people gathering around him, they'd abandoned him. The first winter passed in great difficulty, living in a home which was little more than a smoke-filled lean-to, often shared with not only Indians, but with the cow, her calf, and the little mule, who otherwise might have died. 

Mattias was angry and deprived now, ill in every way after his unceremonious uprooting from Kingston and the utter disruption to his physical comfort and his studies--These Great Studies--which he had pursued with such single-mindedness all his life.  Once again, the bottom had fallen out from under him.

For the first time in his life, his body had begun to fail him. That winter, he suffered from agues, from agonizing pains in his back and neck and shoulders, pains that grew ever more severe as the cold came steadily on and drove him back under his covers. Dreaming Snake helped as much as he could, but he was older than Mattias and had also become frail. It was good that the Shamen's family had come, though, for they never completely ran out of food or fire. Still the house was full and there was no way he could study again until spring and they began to go out, the women to dig and to raise corn, the men to hunt and fish again.

For Mattias, the end of his equanimity came when Dreaming Snake, in that same dreary, sleet-filled April, also passed away, quite peacefully, blessing his friend and his family as he did.  Despite the blessing, Mattias's mood soured and his thoughts grew blacker than before. 

When spring came, a shifty-eyed strong-backed drifter who claimed to be a carpenter came to stay. Though this man, actually a carpenter, but also on the run from a crime downriver, believed he had found an easy mark in this high flown out-cast, but things quickly turned out another way from that he had planned.

Not long many days into his stay at the house, his eyes emptied. Now, every day, he labored hard for Mattias. He never spoke unless spoken to and did what he was told. He never challenged or harmed any of the Indians, and gave no offence to the lovely granddaughters of Dreaming Snake, the ones who now prepared food, washed clothes, and planted Mattias a new garden. At night, this poor fool slept like the dead, only to arise before dawn, and, uncomplaining, care for the cow and the mule, before gulping his breakfast and beginning to labor on the endless task of cutting wood, sawing and shaping.

At the end of that summer, a snug house was built, but the man-in-thrall was not released from the spell Mattias had placed upon him. The man's strength was simply too useful. 

About this time, Mattias began to travel in his mind again, but now he went, instead of away to contemplate the astonishing miracle of the universe, he flew down to Kingston, to look in upon his enemies, those who had turned on him, had driven him out, and scornfully paid him next to nothing for the title to his house and land, while he had stood staring with disbelief at the guns in their hands.

Bitterness grew in his heart and created a great darkness as he spied, swelling even as he peered out at these men he despised from their mirrors from the dark corners of rooms. he began to cast spells upon them, small ones at first, like sending sudden winds down the chimney, choking all inhabitants with smoke. 

Men already well-to-do, men he had once thought of as men of honor and good will, had profited from his downfall. Among them, most poisonous of all, was the new Dominie, now enjoying Mattias's herb garden and his carefully cultivated orchard--even some of the rare books he'd been forced in his hurry, to leave behind.

In the depths of night, sometimes he could hear Dreaming Snake calling to him, telling him that he should not pursue mean revenge with the high Magic he had learned, that which, with so much struggle and sacrifice, he'd acquired. His old friend warned that such a use would cause the power to turn back on him, but somehow, Mattias no longer cared.  

Who did they think they were, these peasants, these dwellers in a single narrow reality, lesser men who dared to pass judgment upon a man who had studied long and hard, had suffered and sacrificed, in order to have the power to turn all the keys? 

He began his revenge with Dominie De Vries, that insufferable prig, the one who had dared to accuse him of heresy. Mattias began to haunt his nights. He especially enjoyed stalking him in the long dark evenings of winter, allowing a dark hand to brush his face in the gallery of his comfortable parsonage. He whispered into his dreams, dreams which now always turned to nightmares from which the Dominie awoke, gasping in terror. 

"Judge not and thou shall not be judged." "Cast the beam from thine eye before thou dare speak of the splinter in mine." "The Letter killeth the Spirit!" "Whited sepulcher, you are, hiding your soul's deep rottenness..." 

One night, driven out of doors by the accusatory voices, the Dominie found himself standing about a mile from his house with no coat or hat on a ferocious January night. The wind howled and tore at his clothes. As he twisted his head gazing around, lost in terror, he gazed up into the star-filled darkness. Feet upon hard, heavily sleeted snow, he wondered how he had come to be there.

For a time, Mattias enjoyed the spectacle of he'd created and the torment he was inflicting. Then, he remembered a tale the Indians had told him, of the Great White Panther who came in this "Moon of Sore Eyes" and prowled about their lodges, looking for a victim to take. 

And suddenly, there he was, a Hexenmeister's mind inside the body of an enormous mountain lion. Mattias appeared in this shape before the Dominie, knowing that his eyes blazed green fire and that his teeth were sharp as honed razors. There was a delicious pause, while he savored the disbelief and horror in his enemy's eyes, before he buried his teeth in that fat white throat. The next morning, the Dominie's new wife--who else but the Widow Visser, now married to this pitiful excuse for a Man of God-- was the one who found him, with all that blood from his severed jugular frozen to the ground around him.

Never waste blood, a voice had said, and as soon as it was spilled, all fresh and hot, there in the blistering wind, Mattias's saw the dark figure to whom this offering would be dedicated. Even this sight could not deter him.

There were other killings that winter by this same panther, the second of which was one of the  merchants, a man he'd thought was his friend, whose family now occupied The heretic Professor's comfortable  Kingston home. This attack was witnessed, though from a distance, by the man's eldest son, known to be a sober and unimaginative fellow.

Better, Mattias knew, if a man were to be the witness. No white man bothered much about what his women saw or thought. He'd seen enough poor creatures condemned as witches back in Germany, sent to be burned or hanged, though they'd done little more than practice some antique prayers for their herds--or their own--fertility. 

He took one after another that had betrayed him. Healthy men suffered sudden apoplexies, heated fevers, or were carried off in the jaws of the spectral panther, which had become a favorite form of execution for him, but his his lust for revenge was never assuaged, it only grew stronger. Mattias extended his reach; he sent contrary winds when the sloops of those who had not come forward to defend him as decent men should came up river. He knew knew all who had been culpable, who had connived at his ruin. He even sent spells across the ocean, sinking ships and burning homes of long-ago persecutors. 

An overwhelming fear seized Kingston that winter. Rumors of raiding parties of those Indians spread wildly through the valley, alarming all the villages and freezing the hearts within every outpost farmstead. Tales of the panther and, later, one of flying demons circulated like fire inside an overheated, hay-filled barn

One morning Mattias returned after a night of such mayhem and entered his kitchen, ready to see what variation on cornmeal mush or fried bread he would be served, but his kitchen was empty, except for a lone woman. She was an elder who had come to stay with the family that lived here. Strangely, she had come alone out of the cold, in the midst of this dreadful winter. 

Mattias had asked no questions. He was used by now to the Indian way of coming and going. She was a silent woman, never smiling, and the granddaughters of Dreaming Snake treated her with great respect. To Mattias, she became simply another useful pair of female hands to grind corn, clean, and prepare food. This morning, she appeared to be the only person there. 

He sent his mind out to peep into the sturdy bark shelters that gathered around his home and then into the barn, but no one was there. Not cows nor the mule nor even his enslaved man servant, not a single breathing thing remained. 

Refocusing himself upon the woman--Gluskab was her name--he asked, "Where has all your kinfolk gone?" He desired to send his mind wandering in search of them, but, somehow, gazing deep into her dark eyes, he understood he could not.

"Dreaming Snake has asked me to send them all away if you did not stop what you are doing. Despite his warnings to you, you have not stopped doing harm. Now it is no longer safe here for anyone, because of the darkness which your actions have called forth. You should know, Hexenmeister, Drinkers of Blood are easy to summon, but they are very difficult to send away."

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Mattias felt a horrible weakness flow over him. He had been so strong, especially since the panther had become part of his power and he'd never, until now, felt the smallest twinge of fear. Suddenly, the world had shifted, with surprise he experienced something of the panic he'd enjoyed visiting upon others. 

He staggered, dizzy. Gluskab, so stern, seemed to be growing taller, more beautiful, too, fiercely beautiful, shining, reminding him in the oddest way of Rabbi Fishbane. His throat closed, his hands froze, and there was a deathly sensation of lost control. 

"You must be a panther now, a panther for many generations that shall haunt these mountains all around, until you atone for your violations of the Rules of the Great Power you have long sought after and then betrayed. For many years, you will come in the darkness to punish the evil-doers, the schemers, the unjust, but you will live only in darkness and as a man no more."

Mattias fell to all fours. He did not struggle or complain when the sentence was pronounced, for he knew right down to the depths of his soul that this was proper justice for misuse of the keys.  

******************************************************************************

So ends the legend of the white panther that still can be heard screaming down the winter wind in the mountains, across those Catskill Mountains. On the surface, these lands are now so cultivated, so tamed, so dishonored and paved, but beneath still lies the ancient Magic, now with the story of two sorcerers engraved in stone. One was Native, the other a High German Hexenmeister. Together, they opened the doors of Revelation, but one of them, seduced by power, lost his way and fell into darkness, somewhere along the perilous path of the sacred keys.  

~~Juliet Waldron


 



 

Popular Posts

Books We Love Insider Blog

Blog Archive